


a million ways to bleed

by notquiteaghost



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Grantaire remembers, M/M, Reincarnation, angst abound, no one else does
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-12
Updated: 2013-05-12
Packaged: 2017-12-11 16:27:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/800762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notquiteaghost/pseuds/notquiteaghost
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Grantaire doesn't mean to find him, this time.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> title is from The Scars You Love by iain thomas; "there are a million ways to bleed. but you are by far my favourite."
> 
> the second chapter is the optional angst-y ending. avoid reading if you want to make up your own happy ending instead.

**2013**  
Grantaire doesn't mean to find him, this time.

...Okay, if he's being honest, he never means to find him. This is just the first time he's made a point of actively avoiding him.

He's still reeling from the last time.

He's started to get sick of this.

(Cancer? _Really_? That's almost worse than the firing squad.

Actually, it's definitely worse. At least the firing squad were quick.

He's never had to watch him die so _slowly_ before.)

He moved to America because America is not France, because Chicago is not Paris, because Chicago doesn't know his name and he doesn't know its history and he's never shed blood on its streets or for its streets and America doesn't cause cancer.

At least, he fucking hopes it doesn't.

He didn't move to America to find Enjolras. If anything, he moved to America to escape Enjolras.

Ridiculous of him, to think that would ever work. Death doesn't seem to pose much of a problem; why would miles and miles of ocean be any different?

And so, he's living in America ( _at the end of the millennium_...). He's got a job, working in a cafe with Eponine, of all people (not that she appreciates the irony, because she has no idea, because she doesn't remember, because he's the only one doomed to remember, because this is all some sick joke and he is _always_ the punchline). In his spare time, he sketches strangers in museums, and teaches card tricks to people in the homeless centre, and watches Enjolras try to change the world, and doesn't drink.

He doesn't drink. Not anymore. Dying of liver failure kind of lessened the appeal.

He doesn't drink, but he does bait Enjolras. He does joke around with Eponine, and he does help Gavroche with his homework, and he does read over Jehan's poetry for him. He does fill sketchbook after sketchbook after sketchbook with people he's known for just over a year and just over a millennium, and he does find himself letting it happen, despite how badly he knows he's going to regret it later.

When he wakes up one morning to the gut-wrenching realisation that this ridiculous group of idealists are his friends, again, he let it happen _again_ , even though he knows how this is going to end (God, does he know)... When he wakes up and almost chokes on the sense memory of grief, he almost leaves. Right there, right then, leave, disappear, start over somewhere else. There are other cities, other states, other continents. 

Enjolras can't follow him everywhere.

(Australia, in particular, sounds rather attractive.)

But Grantaire doesn't leave. He doesn't even get out of bed. He rolls over and he goes back to sleep and he stays. He stays, just like he always does, rain or shine, come hell or high water. 

He's always been such a glutton for punishment.

\---

**1832**  
Grantaire knows they are not going to win.

They never win. That's how this works. They try, they try so hard, they pull Grantaire along for the ride, and then they fail. And Grantaire gets a front-row seat.

Joy.

But, well. He might as well stick it out to the end. Who knows what could happen? He might not even have to watch Enjolras die this time.

(Afterwards, when they have riddled his body with bullets and he is floating between the moment of this death and the moment of the next birth, he will laugh bitterly to himself and wonder if it still counts, if there's only a handful of seconds in it).

\---

**2013**  
"Grantaire!"

Grantaire looks up, then blinks in surprise. Surprise, because that's Enjolras striding towards him, looking as purposeful as ever (the fucker looks purposeful when he's padding half-asleep to the bathroom; Grantaire knows this all too well and has learnt to live with it, mostly), and Grantaire's in the Museum of Contemporary Art. This is Grantaire's safe space; this is not somewhere Enjolras goes.

Enjolras knows nothing of art. He never has.

"Enjolras." Grantaire greets him, pleasant as anything as he tucks his sketchbook back into his bag. "What brings you here, on this fine afternoon?"

"It's raining." Enjolras points out.

Grantaire shrugs. "So? I like the rain. It makes everything smell so much cleaner."

Actually, that hasn't been true for the last hundred years or so, but rain still makes Grantaire nostalgic. The dissonance of that statement - Enjolras, poor man, only remembers modern time acid rain - is probably why Enjolras is looking at him so incredulously.

"Of course it does." He says. "I've been looking for you for hours, you know. Remind me again why you don't have a phone?"

"They cause cancer." Grantaire repeats patiently. Joly's the only one who doesn't think he's ridiculously paranoid for being so anti-mobile, but he's not taking any chances. Not this time. "Also, technology and me, we've just never gotten along too well."

"If you had a phone, I could have just called you, instead of wasting hours traipsing around the city."

Grantaire shrugs again. "I didn't make you come find me. Now quit your whining and get to the point, you're boring me."

There's a beat of silence, silence that sounds strangely nervous, and then Enjolras says, "My parents are having this gallery showing--"

"That's nice. Also, boring."

"--And I have to go, on pain of losing my rent money. And I was wondering if you'd like to come with me. Like, _with_ me. As my plus one." 

Enjolras looks so earnest, he always looks so fucking _earnest_ , and holy mother of Christ on a fucking lollipop stick, Grantaire can still see him, thin and pale and so damn sickly, lying on a hospital bed, every single time he closes his eyes. This isn't _fair_.

Enjolras swallows, apparently taking his partly stunned, partly for-the-love-of-God-I-am-done-with-this-shit silence as refusal, or reluctance, or something. "I mean, you don't have to, I know you hate associating with the one percent, but, I have to go. And, if I have to go, I'd rather go with you. You'd make it bearable. And, okay, maybe I'm completely misinterpreting this - God knows I've always been shit at this - and you're not interested, in which case I'm sorry and I'll drag Combeferre and we won't ever have to mention this again, but if you could let me know either way, that would be appreciated, because now I'm rambling and I can't stop and--"

"I'll go." Grantaire says. "Sorry, I have issues, nothing to do with you, of course I'll go. Jesus, like anything could stop me. Your parents are homophobic bastards, right?"

"It doesn't have to be a date." Enjolras says, carefully, cautiously, and Grantaire swallows back how truly catastrophic an idea this is and grins at him.

"I've had a crush on you literally since I first saw you." He says. "If you want it to be a date, then it's a date. Pissing off your parents is just the icing on a really fucking tasty cake."

"...Oh." Enjolras says, staring at him with something that looks suspiciously like wondrous realisation.

Grantaire rolls his eyes, reaches up to kiss Enjolras on the cheek, and, as he listens to Enjolras list the time and location and dress code, starts counting down the seconds until he gives in to the inevitable and it stops tasting so damn bitter sweet.

It usually takes about a year, providing they live that long.

God fucking damn him, but Grantaire is almost looking forward to it.

\---

**1246**  
Grantaire exists only for Enjolras.

He is born, he lives, he dies, all for Enjolras.

He is beginning to forget the start. He is beginning to give up on an ending.

Enjolras is the sun, the stars, light given life. Grantaire is half in shadow, waiting to be blinded.

Enjolras is a sight to behold. Beauty only exists in the eye of the beholder. Grantaire only exists to behold Enjolras.

Life is circular. This is not what the church teaches, but Grantaire and the Church disagree on a number of things.

Grantaire is born. He lives, he loves, he beholds. He dies. And so it goes.

\---

**2013**  
The gallery showing, for what it is, goes well.

The art is, if Grantaire's being honest, complete shit. He tells Enjolras as much, leaning in close to whisper, "I've seen better art in vomit than in that painting", and grinning when Enjolras bites his lip bloody to try and keep from laughing.

The thinly-veiled looks of disgust on Enjolras' parents faces, however, deserve a gallery showing all of their own. Grantaire makes a point of being constantly in Enjolras' personal space; lacing their fingers together, tracing lines down his arm, resting a hand on the small of his back, nipping playfully at his ear, and leaning back into him when he wraps his arms around Grantaire from behind.

They stay for just over an hour.

Neither of them were drinking - Grantaire because he doesn't drink, not even at pretentious gallery showings, and Enjolras in some strange, adorable display of solidarity - so an hour was all they could stomach.

Also, Grantaire made a game of whispering filth into Enjolras' ear half an hour in, and it turns out even the mighty Apollo has a breaking point.

As such, Grantaire is grinning smugly when Enjolras pushes him against the door to his apartment, only just shut behind them, and presses their lips together, hot and insistent and Jesus, Grantaire always manages to forget just how fucking _good_ a kisser Enjolras is.

He matches Enjolras fervour for fervour, or at least he tries to, biting at his lip and sucking at his tongue and scraping his nails across the back of his neck, grinning triumphantly into the kiss when his efforts earn him an eagerly-swallowed groan.

After a long, immeasurable amount of time, they break apart, and Grantaire lets his head drop back against the wall as he tries to catch his breath.

"Fuck, you're good at that." He pants.

Enjolras nips at his throat by way of reply, which earns him a high-pitched keen and a shove as Grantaire pushes himself off the wall and says, "Bed, bed, we are going to bed and I am getting you naked and I am taking you to pieces, go, go."

Enjolras is laughing when he laces their fingers together and guides Grantaire towards his bedroom, but his eyes are blown black and wide, so Grantaire counts it as a win.

\---

**1973**  
Instead of rings, they get tattoos.

Enjolras gets ' _you are whatever a moon has always meant_ ' and Grantaire gets ' _whatever a sun will always sing is you_ ', both in small letters over their hearts. They explain the meaning to their friends, who grin and congratulate and order them bouquets of flowers, but mostly, it's just for them.

They can't get married. Even if they could, Grantaire is pretty sure they wouldn't, because Enjolras is so completely against marriage as an institution anyway, but the fact of the matter is, they can't. So they don't. They don't need to, anyway. What they have is no one's business but their own, not really; mostly-hidden tattoos seem far more appropriate.

It becomes a kind of shorthand, after a while. Tapping the tattoo, either on their own chest or each other's, instead of saying 'I love you' out loud. It's quicker. Easier. Safer.

One of the last things Enjolras does is reach up and press a fingertip to Grantaire's chest. It hurts more than hearing him say it out loud would have, because of course it does, because everything about this hurts, because Enjolras is _dying_ and he's doing it so damn _slowly_ and Grantaire has to _watch_. 

This isn't even the kind of dying Grantaire can avenge.

Enjolras spends his last days in a hospital bed and there is nothing Grantaire can do about it, apart from sleep in cold, hard hospital chairs and stroke a hand through his hair and press kisses to his forehead and try to stop crying sometimes.

You'd think Grantaire would be used to it. Losing Enjolras.

Grantaire doesn't think it's the kind of thing you can get used to.

He's still surprised, almost, when Enjolras smiles and presses a finger to his chest and stops, just stops, he slows and slows and slows and then he's stopped, so gradually Grantaire almost doesn't notice, if not for the heart rate monitor, if not for the rush of nurses, if not for the way Enjolras' eyes cloud over and his chest stills and Grantaire's heart implodes.

Afterwards, after the funeral and the wake and the three weeks Grantaire spent trying to give himself alcohol poisoning, Grantaire wonders if rings would have been better.

At least he could have thrown a ring away.

But that would have only made him feel worse.

(But, let's be honest, _can_ he feel worse? Surely this is it, surely this is rock bottom, surely it can't get any worse than this. Surely. _Surely_.)

Grantaire reads at the funeral. Stutters and stops and has to swallow back tears so many times his throat starts to burn. " _This is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart_."

When he cuts back on the drinking enough to start dreaming again - when he can stomach dreaming again - he keeps jerking awake, convinced someone had tapped him on the chest, like Enjolras always used to do, their own version of shaking each other awake. But it was just a dream, just his ridiculous self-destructive over-active imagination, because it's always just a dream, when he hears someone open the front door and call out "Honey, I'm home!", when he sees a flash of blonde out of the corner of his eye, when he feels the bed dip under someone else's weight, it's always a dream.

Because Enjolras is dead. Because Enjolras died. Because Grantaire is damned to this, loving this man he's never allowed to keep, loving him too much, letting it consume him and then being left scrambling to find the pieces of himself when the man, inevitably, leaves him behind.

He presses a finger to his own chest, sometimes.

It's not the same.

\---

**2013**  
It's incredibly easy, to fall into Enjolras.

(It always is).

When Grantaire wakes up the morning after the gallery showing, naked and kiss-bruised and in Enjolras' bed, he honestly doesn't know whether to laugh or cry. Because it's starting again, he can feel it; they're falling into each other. Like collapsing stars, caught in the gravity of it, unable to pull away.

He chooses to smile, pretend it isn't slightly bitter, slip out of bed without waking Enjolras, brush his teeth (using a spare toothbrush, because he does have boundaries), and pad into the kitchen wearing only his boxers and Enjolras' shirt to see if he can find adequate ingredients to make pancakes.

After a few minutes, Enjolras appears, wearing Grantaire's boxers and nothing else and with this sappy grin on his face, and really, what else is Grantaire meant to do but kiss him?

"Morning." Enjolras says, when they break for air. "Are those pancakes?"

"These are pancakes." Grantaire says, nodding. "Breakfast seemed like the least I could do."

Enjolras makes a low, humming noise. "I don't have to be anywhere until three. When's your shift start?"

"Day off. Eponine insisted." Grantaire says, ever-so-slightly breathlessly. Enjolras is kissing his way down Grantaire's neck. It's making it hard to think. "Pancakes're gonna go cold."

"Okay, okay, pancakes first." Enjolras allows. He's smiling, and he presses one final kiss to Grantaire's collarbone before moving away, towards the waiting pile of pancakes. 

Grantaire watches him go, sure there's some disgustingly sappy look on his face. He's pretty sure self-destruction doesn't usually feel this good, but his life has always been backwards. He's going to regret this later, he's damn sure of it, but for now, he's got pancakes and Enjolras and Enjolras' promising smirk. Things could be worse.

(Things will be worse, just give it time, it's all just a matter of time, but he isn't thinking about that. He isn't thinking about that. He steals a mouthful of one of Enjolras' pancakes, loses himself in the playful glare he gets, pretends he doesn't know how this is going to end. Things could be worse. Could be. Might be. Maybe.

And until they are, he can convince himself into thinking it's never going to happen.)

\---

**1008**  
He has done this before. He has been here before.

He does not know how. He does not know why. He only knows that he has.

He remembers dying.

He is not dead - not yet, not anymore - and yet, he remembers dying. He does not understand. He does not know how.

He does not know why.

(Later, much later, he will look back and realise the words on the tip of his tongue were 'deja vu' and 'damnation').

\---

**1916**  
There is a war.

(Mud, blood and despair, as far as the eye can see. Nightmares come to life. Death, death, death.)

It seems like, everywhere they go, there is a war. Always a war. Goddamn war.

(Dulce et decorum est.) 

Grantaire is pretty sure Enjolras lied about his age.

(Somewhere close, a bomb explodes. The ground shakes. Someone shouts, screams, cries. Grantaire doesn't even blink.)

Grantaire is pretty sure Enjolras is going to die before he turns eighteen.

(Marius has just returned from the infirmary. He's brought alcohol, courtesy of the blessed Nurse Cosette. Enjolras will disapprove, mutter that they're all going to die if they keep getting drunk in the trenches like this. Grantaire will pretend he can't hear and wrestle Bahorel for the last bottle.)

Grantaire is pretty sure Enjolras is going to die whilst Grantaire watches.

(Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.)

Oh, but he wishes he was surprised.

\---

**2076**  
It feels like the last time.

Enjolras has been dead for a month. He'd died quietly in his sleep, he'd died with a smile on his face, and he'd lived for so long. They've both lived for so long.

Grantaire is so tired.

And he's always known, before it happens, some corner of his mind whispering about dark tunnels and the gloriously empty in-between. He's so tired, and so happy, and it feels like the last time.

He's almost eighty six. There's a wedding ring on his finger. He'll be buried beside Enjolras. 

He's so tired.

When he falls asleep, he doesn't think he's going to wake back up.

He smiles.

His eyelids drift close. The left side of the bed is achingly empty, but he knows Enjolras is waiting for him, in the in-between, in Schroedinger's box, just like always. He's getting sleepier. He's getting sleepier and sleepier and it feels like the last time, and he's been waiting for so long, he's so tired, Enjolras is waiting, he's smiling, he's...

Darkness overtakes him. 

There are several, immeasurable moments of just that, darkness, and then he blinks and stretches and greets Death like an old friend, takes a deep breath, takes a step forward, and--


	2. optional angst-y ending

**2078**  
-And a baby is born in a hospital in France, because it is always France, because France is in their blood and France is soaked in their blood and it is always, _always_ France-

And the baby screams, and cries, and shakes, and his mother shushes him, smiles at him, admires his big, blue eyes, and says to his father, "He looks like a Grantaire, doesn't he?"

**Author's Note:**

> i am [here](http://monsterau.tumblr.com) on tumblr.


End file.
